He says he’s not a real criminal, yet he’s spent more than 10 years in jail.

He says football is a beautiful sport, but he represents the single-biggest threat to the integrity of the professional game.

Wilson Raj Perumal is known as the world’s most prolific match-fixer, and I’m sitting face-to-face with him in the capital of Hungary, Budapest. It’s the first time he’s ever been interviewed on television.

Perumal has recently published his memoirs, "Kelong Kings," his account of an astonishing career spanning almost two decades, in which he says he rigged – with a success rate of roughly 80% – about 100 football matches all over the world. He was particularly active in the three years leading up to his final arrest in 2011.

From the Olympics to World Cup qualifiers, the CONCACAF Gold Cup, the African Cup of Nations, the Women’s World Cup and numerous other friendly international fixtures, Perumal claims to have operated at the sharp end of an Asian fixing syndicate, conducting their business on four continents.

Most match fixers are anonymous. Investigators tracking the problem believe that Wilson Raj Perumal is just the tip of the iceberg, but since his arrest in 2011 (the fourth time he was tried and convicted for football-related crimes), he’s become the public face of match fixing. The publication of his story has given us a fascinating window into a global, clandestine, operation.

He is a fascinating character. From humble beginnings in Singapore, Perumal rose to become a shareholder in a sophisticated, multi-million dollar fixing syndicate. He claims to have made around $5 million illegally, showing no remorse for it. And he has little regret for blowing it all, a fortune frittered away as a result of his gambling habit.

Perumal speaks very matter-of-factly about his activities, fondly recalling the FIFA accredited referees he was so easily able to corrupt. “He was the best,” he told me as we reviewed games on YouTube that he says he manipulated, adding “of course, not the best for FIFA!”

As we watched another international friendly, he lamented a poor performance by the man in the middle, saying that a ‘more experienced’ referee would have waited longer before awarding a penalty. “You mean a more experienced corrupt referee,” I corrected him.

“Yes,” he chuckled.

Perumal reluctantly concedes that he is a criminal – “only because the media have given it so much attention” – but even then he would only cast himself as a white-collar crook.

With the exception of a player he took out with a brazen street attack in 2000 – he injured his knee with a hockey stick and was jailed for 12 months – he says he isn’t a violent operator. Nor did he ever intimidate the people he worked with, he claims.

Investigators who have spent years on the trail of fixers paint a very different picture though. The world they see is one in which players and referees are cornered, intimidated and blackmailed, their naivety exploited. When their involvement is finally exposed, it’s the players who pay the biggest price, some banned for life and publicly humiliated. In several cases in Korea, it tragically ended in suicide.

The damage is much more widespread though. Football’s very integrity is now at stake, fans are trying to discern the reality from the fiction and in the countries where the corruption has been endemic like Singapore and Malaysia, the supporters have walked away, the sponsorship has evaporated, the game has collapsed.

While the media has demonized him, Perumal presents himself as softly spoken, polite and likeable. For our interview, he’s dressed smartly in a blazer and a crisp, sky-blue shirt; the colour successfully predicted in advance of his arrival by the co-authors of his book. Unusually, he’s sporting black-rimmed spectacles; like the shirt, for special occasions only. Court hearings, etc.

Despite his best efforts to destroy football’s integrity, it’s a game he says he loves; football is a “beautiful sport.” As a promising young athlete in Singapore, he dreamed of emulating Argentina’s world cup winner Mario Kempes.

As we wandered through the streets of Budapest, he enthused about Brazil’s forward Neymar, lamenting that Barcelona should play a system that would maximize his potential. He told of his frustration that Spain persisted with goalkeeper Iker Casillas during their disastrous World Cup, a tournament on which he’d have lost ‘a lot of money’ as a gambler, because the results were so unpredictable.

It’s obvious that Perumal is very proud of his ‘career’ and the time and effort he invested in it. As he described in "Kelong Kings," “I gave Singapore’s economy a substantial shove. In 2009 alone, I spent close to $1.5 million on airline tickets for myself and my teams, a lot of money for someone running his business from the back of a photocopy shop.”

One of the investigators who pursued him admits that his ‘achievements’ command respect. Initially coercing players and referees, Perumal built up a global network of contacts. Ultimately he was dealing directly with a handful of co-operative national associations – ‘we were like two hands prepared to clap’ – and many others were unwittingly part of the scam.

When he was arrested for travelling on a false passport in Finland three years ago, the authorities discovered that Perumal had contacts for more than 50 national associations – that’s a quarter of the countries that play under the FIFA umbrella – on his laptop and phone.

At his peak, Perumal wasn’t just bribing a handful of individuals to underperform; he was creating international friendly fixtures, his organisation was fronting-up hundreds of thousands of dollars in overheads to fly teams all over the world and, of course, confidently betting on the results.

As a front, Perumal established his own company, Football 4 U International, which no longer exists. The whole thing was remarkably sophisticated, but there was much about the operation that was rudimentary. I have seen FIFA’s internal report into a series of manipulated friendly games before the 2010 World Cup, which described contractual agreements as ‘commercially laughable.’ And while his company might have sounded legitimate, its main email address – foot_ball4u@yahoo.com.sg – was perhaps less so.

And what certainly wasn’t sophisticated was the absence of any password protection on Perumal’s computer and email account, gift-wrapping for the authorities twelve thousand incriminating messages and a treasure-trove of information.

The keyboard with which he copy-edited the manuscript for his book has only 25 functioning letters; it must have been infuriating for his co-authors to locate all the missing Ws.

Throughout the two days we spent together, what really struck me was Perumal’s sense of entitlement, to him there was nothing morally wrong with making a living this way.

Here’s why: In the highly commercialized world of professional sport – which he viewed as corrupted well before he entered it – he was simply taking his piece of the pie. It’s clear that he holds FIFA in contempt, alleging that corruption within football’s world governing body is no way to lead by example, “it gives people like me the encouragement to go ahead and do what I’m doing.”

Given his vast experience and his willingness to share his knowledge, I find it surprising that, according to Perumal, FIFA hasn’t contacted him to help with their drive to clean up the sport. He would have plenty to say. At the very least, he could show them where to look if they’re serious about restoring credibility to the beautiful game. He certainly would be able to help them understand the odds and betting patterns in the Asian gambling markets which are crucial to comprehending how the fixers operate.

For the first time in his professional life, Wilson Raj Perumal can’t predict what’s going to happen next, it remains to be seen what the future holds. He’s still the subject of an international arrest warrant, a lengthy detention – possibly without trial – looms over him in Singapore.

He has no intention of ever returning home and being locked up with some of his former associates, instead he is focusing on his new young family. His girlfriend gave birth to twin girls earlier this year; a wedding is planned in the near future. From their home in Debrecen, a couple of hours east of Budapest, he’s contemplating a new venture – possibly a food court or garment business.

He hopes that the publication of his book will help close the chapter on his past life – it will be hard to fix matches with his face so well known – and perhaps help fund his new one; he told me that he was persuaded to pen his memoirs when he read that Amanda Knox had been paid millions for her deal with Harper Collins.

While the sales of Kelong Kings have been slow so far, there is certainly interest in Perumal’s story. For the same reason that Martin Scorcese’s Hollywood gangster movie Goodfellas is so popular, people seem to be intrigued by a chancer who is daring enough to beat the system. Via his Facebook page, Perumal receives hundreds of messages every day.

But the message of Perumal’s story is very serious. That he was able to operate as he did, so brazenly and unchallenged, is a major problem for football. When CNN asked the associations concerned if investigations have been conducted regarding the claims he made in his book, we were dismissed or ignored. FIFA’s response wasn’t much better, saying the game’s integrity is a ‘top priority’, but refusing to provide any details of investigations.

In the final analysis, you have to wonder how much is really being done to tackle match fixing. In the meantime, there could be many more Wilson Raj Perumals lining up to take their piece of the action, further trashing the game’s fragile integrity.

]]>http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/2014/08/27/face-to-face-with-footballs-most-notorious-match-fixer/feed/32014-08-27T13:06:26+00:00mwk2009How the U.S. learned to love soccerhttp://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/2014/06/26/how-the-u-s-learned-to-love-soccer/
http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/2014/06/26/how-the-u-s-learned-to-love-soccer/#commentsThu, 26 Jun 2014 09:35:30 +0000http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/?p=10446As an England football fan, I’m well used to the national mood swings that ebb and flow with the fortunes of my country’s team at major tournaments. For a youthful supporter in 1990 and 1996, glorious semi-final runs have defined my recollections of those entire summers.

Equally, the catastrophic capitulation to Germany in 2010 and numerous penalty shootout fiascos are recalled much less fondly.

Either way, something I had usually taken for granted was that every few years I could expect the England team to compete on a major international stage and - for a few weeks - it felt like the whole country was in it together.

Win or lose and whether the failure was triumphant or abject, there was always something comforting about the collective, patriotic experience.

Having moved to the United States a couple of years ago, it quickly struck me that American sports fans have never experienced anything like it.

This is a hugely sporty country. Roughly 120 million people tune in for the Superbowl every February, the baseball and basketball seasons seemingly never end, there’s a rabid obsession with collegiate sports and all of the above are pervasive in everyday popular culture.

But rarely, if ever, does America unite to cheer on a collective team against the rest of the world.

The basketball and ice hockey squads sent to the Olympics every other year hardly get the collective pulses racing and we all know that baseball’s World Series is the biggest misnomer in all of sport.

Most American sports fans would choose their own provincial teams over the country as a whole.

But since 1986, there has been the opportunity to emotionally invest in something bigger.

Their football players, the ‘soccer’ team or the US men’s national team (USMNT) has qualified for the World Cup every four years. The trouble was, nobody noticed. Soccer was hitherto seen as a high-school game for girls and the butt of smug anchor jokes on ESPN’s nightly flagship show ‘SportsCenter.’

Historically, it’s been a hard game for Americans to embrace. There’s not enough scoring and there’s not always a winner. Even in meaningless baseball, basketball and hockey games they’ll play all night until one of the teams emerges victorious.

In almost every other country, the quarterfinal run of 2002 would have made national news, but here - barely anyone noticed. And the few Americans who did care were mocked internally for their ridiculous exuberance and for what was perceived as a limited and or geeky knowledge of the game and its history.

In 2010, the satirical publication ‘The Onion’ mocked the country’s ‘lone soccer fan’, whose ‘World Cup fever’ was becoming ‘insufferable’ to his colleagues at work. The message was pretty clear - anyone eschewing American football, baseball or basketball for soccer was an outsider, a loser.

And this year, with a cult following of more than 350,000 on Twitter, there is @USASoccerGuy who account provides a running commentary of the tournament, lampooning the Americanization of football with phrases like ‘headkicks’ (headers), ‘death strikes’ (penalties) and ‘felony cards’ whenever a player is booked or sent off.

However, there is growing evidence that those stereotypes may not be quite as accurate as they used to be.

There is little doubt that, across the land, the U.S. is finally being seduced by soccer’s charms. NBC’s successful first season of covering England’s Premier League - (with the right package, every match can be watched live here - is validation of the burgeoning interest.

Anecdotally, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to make many new acquaintances, who rank soccer as their favourite sport.

As we gather to watch our sons play baseball –- one of those boys is called Beckham - the conversation typically revolves around the latest Premier League drama and the fortunes, in particular, of Everton. USA and Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard’s connection means that many Americans have a soft spot for the Toffeemen.

Curiously, these friends don’t like what they see as a European game being ‘Americanized’ by broadcasters like Fox Sports. They much prefer the British commentators and analysts found on NBC or ESPN, because it’s obvious they understand the history and culture and haven’t had to learn it from a book.

Meanwhile, television viewing figures for this World Cup are breaking records. ESPN’s ratings are up 30% on the 2010 event, while the Spanish-language Univision reports an increase of 50%.

Across both channels, Sunday’s dramatic 2-2 draw between the USA and Portugal topped 25 million, a figure that easily trumped the decisive game five of the NBA finals (nearly 18 million) the previous week and thrashed the average audiences for the World Series (14.9 million) and the Stanley Cup Final (five million).

And the real figure is certainly higher because the Nielsen research doesn’t account for the audience consuming the action on phones or computers or en-masse in bars and fan parks.

Many more are absent from the count altogether because they’re in Brazil to watch the action live. FIFA sold more than 154,000 tickets to supporters in the United States, by far the most of any country except Brazil. USA players at the tournament have said it feels like they’re playing home games at this World Cup.

Whatever happens during the Germany game and possibly beyond, 10 of the 23-man squad will return to play out the rest of the Major League Soccer (MLS) season, a league that has been rapidly growing in size over the last decade.

Since the arrival of David Beckham in 2007, seven new teams have been added with three or four slated to kick-off in the coming years. The expansion is proof of the growing interest and the atmospheres at games in Seattle and Portland would be the envy of some Premier League clubs.

Nonetheless it would still be a stretch to say the U.S. is gripped by ‘football fever.’

The sheer size of the country means it will be a long time before the nation collectively holds its breath during a World Cup game, and it may never happen.

But the last two USA games alone have undoubtedly made a few converts and forced all American sports fans to acknowledge at least one thing: tied games don’t have to be boring.

They might not have liked the heartbreaking draw against Portugal, but no one could ever claim it wasn’t a pulsating, breathtaking, edge-of-the-seat experience!

Every one of us remembers exactly where we were and what we were doing on April 15, when we learned that over 90 Liverpool supporters had been crushed to death at an FA Cup semifinal. Along with many others across the country, I was listening to the game on the radio, quickly switching on the television to watch a disaster unfold in front of me.

This was a time before the Premier League, before the massive investment in all-seater stadia; football was very different back then.

Anyone who'd stood on a terrace and been herded like cattle into and out of a stadium could relate to what those fans must have gone through. Most of the time, standing behind the goal at a first division game was a lot of fun, the crowd ebbed and flowed with the action on the field, a crowd that was a vibrant, living entity and you were thrilled to be a part of it.

Never did it occur to you that being swept off your feet to a point 30 feet down the terrace could be dangerous, nor that one day you might not be able to move at all, the life slowly crushed from your lungs while your favorite team played just yards ahead of you.

Everything about Hillsborough was awful, but for the bereaved families and the traumatized fans, the pain would only get worse. Within minutes of the game being stopped, the senior police officer in charge had blamed Liverpool supporters for forcing open a perimeter gate.

His comment took seconds to utter, but it helped shape the narrative for decades to come, namely that those supporters were responsible for their own fatalities and for the deaths of others.

Only in 2012, 23 years after the fact, was the accepted narrative meaningfully open to question. An independent panel cleared the supporters of responsibility and new evidence suggested that some of the victims might have survived if there had been a better – and more coordinated – response from the emergency services.

Tireless campaigning from the families was starting to pay off, 96 verdicts of accidental death were quashed, a new inquest – which began last month – was ordered.

Now, the role of a number of interested parties will be considered by the Inquest – notably South Yorkshire police, who were on duty on the day of the disaster; the West Midlands police, who were responsible for the official investigation that followed the disaster; the Yorkshire ambulance service, and the Football Association.

It has taken a generation for the families to at last feel that all the evidence will be put to the test. In that time, an entire community in the northwest of England had been traumatized, but crucially it had never given up. Against all the odds, they at last have a chance of finding out what happened all those years ago.

It was almost as if Liverpool's adopted song, "You'll Never Walk Alone," had provided the template for their struggle:

"When you walk through a storm, keep your chin up high.

At the end of the storm is a golden sky.

Walk on with hope in your heart and you'll never walk alone."

But the Hillsborough campaigners never wanted to be in that storm. Working-class families never wanted to have to find the strength to stand up to the highest authorities in the land, but that was the card they were dealt. They don't want any awards or accolades but they will not give up until they are satisfied that there has been a fair and rigorous hearing.

Liverpool is a port city. Some would say it has more in common with New York or Marseille than the rest of Britain, its people are hard-working and honest and they don't take kindly to being pushed around. It's sometimes debated whether any other community would have kept fighting for as long as the "Scousers," whose campaign has been tenacious in the extreme.

As Bill Kenwright, the owner of the city's other big team – Everton – once put it, "They picked on the wrong city. They picked on the wrong Mums."

Just ask Rupert Murdoch, who watched the sales of his "The Sun" newspaper plummet after leading with a cover story titled "The Truth" about Liverpool's fans robbing the Hillsborough victims and urinating on the police.
It was estimated in Phil Scraton’s book “Hillsborough, the Truth” that the headline cost the publisher 200,000 readers and over $16 million in annual revenue.

The bereavement was so cruel. The families have had to relive the horror of 1989 so many times that there's hardly been a chance to grieve. Countless family members have died prematurely, there have been breakdowns and suicides. No-one outside of those families can say for sure if Hillsborough is the cause, but their pain is very obvious.

I spent only a short time with the victims’ relatives, but it was long enough to see the inner torment that is still very raw and very real. I saw the Polaroid photographs of their loved ones in body bags, I held the tickets that granted them access through the turnstiles and down towards their deaths.

In some cases, the impact of Hillsborough is obvious. Trevor and Jenni Hicks, who drove to the game as a family and returned home without their two daughters, were divorced within two years. The grief and the pressure of coping with it drove them apart.

In so many other cases though, the devastating impact is less apparent. Margaret Aspinall, who lost her eldest son James, admitted to me that she hardly saw her other four children because she was so consumed by the years of struggle following the disaster. Now, the next generation makes the same complaint, they never get to spend time with Grandma.

These are just two stories of the bereaved families. There are at least 90 more and that's before even considering the hundreds of people who were injured and the countless others who went to a football game and were emotionally traumatized by a sight of bodies piled against a perimeter fence.

So many people have been damaged by Hillsborough, so many families irrevocably broken.

All of these people are tired. Many, who should by now be enjoying a peaceful retirement, are still waiting for the facts to be established.

There must never be another Hillsborough. In recent times, the debate around the reintroduction of standing at football matches has re-surfaced – "safe standing" is proving popular at some grounds in Germany.

Some would like to see it introduced to Premier League grounds in England, but those making the arguments haven't had to walk even a mile in the shoes of the Hillsborough survivors. They would never endorse it because safe seating will always be safer than safe standing.

I must say it's hard to disagree with them.

]]>http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/14/will-hillsborough-scars-ever-heal/feed/22014-04-15T10:06:40+00:00garymorleyPostcard from America: U.S. sport leads by example in anti-homophobia fighthttp://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/17/postcard-from-america-u-s-sport-leads-by-example-in-anti-homophobia-fight/
http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/17/postcard-from-america-u-s-sport-leads-by-example-in-anti-homophobia-fight/#commentsMon, 17 Mar 2014 11:05:26 +0000http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/?p=10269These are seminal times in the United States. In the space of just a year, the landscape of professional sports here has been transformed with the emergence of three openly gay athletes.

Robbie Rogers, who now plays for the LA Galaxy in Major League Soccer, broke the mould, before Jason Collins became the first openly gay player in any of the four major U.S. sports.

The 35-year-old Collins was only signed on a 10 day contract by the Brooklyn Nets (subsequently signing for another 10 days) but the impact was huge.

So think what it will be like if Michael Sam joins the NFL. Sam is a defensive end and has just completed his education at the University of Missouri –if he’s drafted in May, he’d become the first active NFL player to have declared his homosexuality publicly.

In the macho world of testosterone-fuelled locker-rooms, homosexuality is seen as the last taboo.

As Rogers recently told CNN, “I’m in a love/hate relationship with football. I love it because I’ve done it my whole life and it’s brought me so much joy and I could, when I was on the field, you forget about it. You’re judged for what you do on the field,

"But there’s everything around football and politics. There’s the locker room that, when I was younger, before I came out, really hurt me. Stadiums where, especially in England, you hear the most homophobic things.”

At the age of just 25, Rogers felt that he had to retire in order to live a more honest life as a gay man. It was only the positive reaction from his peers, particularly in his native America, that prompted him to play on with The Galaxy.

The handful of prominent athletes who’ve come out recently have waited until their professional careers were over, notably the NBA’s John Amaechi, soccer’s Thomas Hizlsperger and rugby’s Gareth Thomas.

In cricket, Steven Davies was a rare exception, he came out in 2011 and continued playing. He told me then that the reaction from his peers had been very positive.

It remains to be seen how Sam will fare in the next few months. NFL teams don’t have a reputation for eagerly embracing "distractions" and as Sam learned at the NFL Combine - where players are scouted –the media circus was only really interested in one thing: his homosexuality.

However, Sam's agent Cameron Weiss is optimistic, telling me that the NFL has been "amazing" and that from the interaction they’ve had with the teams so far, his client’s sexual orientation is a
"non-issue."

Despite football’s uber-macho image in the U.S., Weiss actually thinks that an NFL locker-room could be the most welcoming to an athlete like Sam.

"A football locker-room is the biggest in pro-sports, you’ve got 53 guys and the most diverse offering of personal backgrounds," said Sam's agent. "I would think such an environment would be well-suited to be accepting of a player with a different sexual orientation.”

Weiss admits that he was surprised by the positive reaction to Sam’s announcement.

While they were expecting it to be mixed, they were instead "overwhelmed" by the support. “It’s a seminal time in the U.S., the issue of gay marriage is front and center and in 2014, it’s time for everyone to put these pre-conceived notions - that have held us back as a society - behind us.”

Anthony Caruso is a sports attorney with special expertise in American football and he agrees the landscape is changing.

He cautions that any player whose "public profile is bigger than his statistics" can be a problem, but he thinks the novelty of Sam or any other openly gay player will quickly wear off.

“The lines between sports and entertainment are blurring very quickly,” said Caruso. "The courage shown by Rogers, Collins and Sam will enable others to take the same brave steps. That’s important, it’s a good thing for sport.”

As Neil Armstrong so eloquently put it on the lunar surface 45 years ago, the emergence of three openly gay athletes is only "one small step," but it's a milestone that will perhaps give others the courage to live their lives more freely without having to sacrifice their sporting aspirations.

But make no mistake that there is still a very long way to go. Assuming Sam makes it to the NFL he’ll be the only openly gay footballer player out of almost 1700. And don't forget in 33 of the states in the U.S., gay marriage is still illegal.

But credit where credit is due. Not everyone would argue that the US is the most tolerant of societies in the western world, but in the sports world at least, it is tentatively taking small steps and leading by example.

]]>http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/17/postcard-from-america-u-s-sport-leads-by-example-in-anti-homophobia-fight/feed/32014-03-17T11:05:26+00:00jsinnottcnnPostcard from America: Does sport need a soundtrack?http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/16/postcard-from-america-does-sport-need-a-soundtrack/
http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/16/postcard-from-america-does-sport-need-a-soundtrack/#commentsThu, 16 Jan 2014 13:12:22 +0000http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/?p=10076Tickets to the big games aren’t cheap these days, and since the teams you’re paying to see can’t guarantee a winning performance – or even a decent one – they try at least to give you value for money.

In the U.S. they try harder than anywhere, and as such it sometimes feels as though you’re at a pop concert, tapping along with your foot as the buckets drop and the goals fly in. Sport and music are big players in the global entertainment industry, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that they work together.

On our high-definition televisions, sports highlights are often packaged up and edited to the beats of the day, and somehow they seem even better with a soundtrack.

In Europe, Champions League soccer is as recognizable for its signature theme tune as it is for Messi and Ronaldo, and every February there’s almost as much interest in the halftime show as there is in the Super Bowl itself; in case you were wondering, it’s Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing next month.

But in American football’s showpiece event, the music has a clearly defined place: the interval between the first and second half. In other sports, though, it’s harder to tell where one thing ends and the other begins.

British basketball fans will know what I mean when the Atlanta Hawks play the Brooklyn Nets at London's O2 Arena on Thursday.

The NBA claims to be the only major American sport where music can be heard during live play. Every team works from its own playlist, one which it feels is best suited to its own regional market, most of which is played by a DJ at appropriate intervals.

But the Hawks are different, they’re one of only a handful of teams in the league to employ a live organist.

"Sir Foster" provides the soundtrack to all of Atlanta’s home games and – since every match-up is different and unpredictable – no two of his performances are the same. His main job is to enhance the Hawks’ home-court advantage, combining the team’s signature chants like "Go Hawks" or "D-fense" with whatever melodies spring to mind.

“The only way I can really describe it,” he told me before catching his flight to London, “is that I’m scoring a live-action play. You need to understand the ebb and flow of the game because the action on the floor dictates everything.”

One of his first challenges was to learn how to play songs by Rihanna, Jay Z or The White Stripes in 24-second bursts (the time each team has to make a shot), knowing at any moment that he might have to break off for a change in possession.

He estimates he could play as many as 16 different songs per night, but much less if it’s a tight game, when he’ll focus on leading the fans in supportive chants. It’s quite a skill, one that he says requires "a focus of laser-like intensity" as he keeps an ear on the crowd and an eye on both the action and the shot clock.

Foster feels he can make the biggest difference when the away team has the ball. As the 24-second shooting window ticks down, he’ll amp it up, playing louder and faster, trying to unsettle them and rush them into making a shot.

He knows he’s done his job when they miss, usually confirmed by his producer’s voice in his headset: “That one’s on you, Foster!”

If organ music is your thing, then Atlanta is a good place to be a sports fan. Just down the road at the Braves stadium, Matthew Kaminski is the resident organist for the city’s baseball team.

There’s nothing he can do when the ball is in play but at all other times he does everything he can to make the Braves feel at home – and naturally quite the opposite for the visitors.

As the batters walk up to the plate, Kaminski has around 30 seconds to play their individual theme tunes. The home players all get to choose their musical identity – for example, Chipper Jones was identified by Ozzy Osbourne’s "Crazy Train" for years – but the visitors don’t enjoy the same privilege.

In fact, Kaminski is allowed to have a little fun at their expense on his Hammond organ.

If your name happens to be James McDonald, you’ll be walking up to "Old MacDonald Had A Farm." If you’re sporting a beard and bear a passing resemblance to the son of God, don’t be surprised to hear the Doobie Brothers’ "Jesus Is Just Alright With Me."

And if you hail from the Lone Star State, you may be treated to the county hit "All My Exes Live In Texas."

Asked how he’d score me, he started out with a play on my last name – "riddle" – before concluding, “Actually I’d just go with your first name, Don – 'The Godfather!' ”

It’s all good-humored, and Kaminski’s songs have helped to create a long-running in-joke between him and the fans in the ballpark. He has almost 9,000 followers on Twitter and claims to receive between 50 to 100 musical suggestions before every game.

I used to live in Yorkshire – rugby league country – where I covered the creation of the Super League competition and a switch to a summer game in 1996. Musical interludes were introduced by clubs like the Bradford Bulls, and I remember thinking how cheesy it was.

But somehow, when I hear it used in American sports I think it’s charming; it feels nostalgic yet also contemporary.

Not every sports fan approves of so much music on this side of the pond either, but when your team is having a bad night it’s nice to have something to take your mind off the pain and the suffering!

What do you think? Post your comments below or continue the conversation with @donriddellCNN

http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/2014/01/07/10054/feed/12014-01-08T10:56:05+00:00tommcgowanWhat was the biggest sports story of 2013?http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/2013/12/17/what-was-the-biggest-sport-story-of-2013/
http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/2013/12/17/what-was-the-biggest-sport-story-of-2013/#commentsTue, 17 Dec 2013 16:26:42 +0000http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/?p=9973From the heights of achievement to the despair of fallen idols, it has been a game of two halves for sport in 2013.

Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and Serena Williams led the way on the tennis court, but sports fans saw heroes such as Lance Armstrong and Oscar Pistorius taint their considerable legacies beyond redemption.

Then there was a farewell to one of the giants of football, Alex Ferguson, who left behind a wealth of memories not just for supporters of his club Manchester United but for the beautiful game as a whole - which has suffered through controversies over corruption and future World Cups.

So what was your top sporting story of 2013? CNN's World Sport anchors share their leading selections below, and we'd like to hear your opinions too.

Have your say in the comments box and vote in the poll.

You can also let us know on Twitter @WorldSportCNN or tweet any of our anchors (click on the names for their handles) with the hashtag #WorldSportTop10

Amanda Davies1.ANDY MURRAY - For 77 years, British men had competed at Wimbledon, but failed to lift the title at their home grand slam. For 30-something of those, I had been one of the members of the British public watching, wishing, and waiting.

And since 2005, Murray has been the player shouldering that burden. He had been edging closer and closer, reaching the final in 2012, then claiming Olympic gold, followed by the U.S. Open crown. But with every step closer, so the pressure valve cranked up a notch. It will never again reach the level it did in that final. Two sets, 5-4, 40-love up against world No. 1 Novak Djokovic.

Murray said he couldn't breathe. And neither could a nation. But on match point number four, with a Djokovic backhand into the net, all the years of hurt were forgotten, a weight was lifted.

Amanda Davies sat down with Andy Murray the morning after his Wimbledon triumph.

Sitting down with the first British men's singles Wimbledon champion since Fred Perry in 1936, the morning after the night before, was a privilege. It may sound flippant, but he really did seem a changed man from the one I had spoken to before.

2.OSCAR PISTORIUS - I was awoken by the phone ringing in the early hours of the morning. The words I heard: "Oscar Pistorius has shot his girlfriend. She's dead." They were some of the most difficult words of the year to comprehend.

Just six months after I'd interviewed Pistorius in London amidst the celebration that was the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, I was suddenly talking about a murder trial.

There are still so many questions, and still a very long way to go until the case reaches court. But this was without doubt the most shocking and tragic sport story of 2013.

3.ALEX FERGUSON - You never dared believe this one would happen. But trust Sir Alex - aged 71 - to catch us all unaware. We were all ready for him to retire 12 years ago before he changed his mind.

Twelve major titles later, at 0917 on the morning of May 8, the Manchester United press office announced the news with a simple tweet: "Sir Alex Ferguson retires. #thankyousiralex."

As a lifelong United fan, I didn't need any encouragement to wax lyrical about "The Boss." But his impact in his 27 years at Old Trafford was so great that there was more demand for coverage of this breaking story from Manchester than any other that I've covered in my time at CNN.

Not just from sports shows, but news, and business too - in America, Europe and Asia. The man who saw off the challenge of Liverpool, Newcastle United and Arsenal. The Scot who led some of the best players the Premier League has ever seen - the likes of Eric Cantona, David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs and Ruud van Nistelrooy. The struggles of his successor David Moyes simply serve to highlight what an incredible job he did.

1.ANDY MURRAY - There are waits, and then there’s the wait that Britain endured between men’s singles champions at Wimbledon.

Seventy-seven years is a long time and Andy Murray proved that patience and perseverance can indeed pay off.

Mark McKay reporting live from SuperBowl XLVII in New Orleans back in February.

Winning Olympic gold at London 2012 on the hallowed grounds of the All-England Club no doubt boosted his confidence. Winning his first grand slam in New York City three months later laid the foundation for his inspired performance in this year's Wimbledon final where he beat 2011 champion Djokovic in straight sets.

2.OSCAR PISTORIUS - “Inspiring” is one of the words most commonly associated with Oscar Pistorius. He overcame a birth defect to become a Paralympic champion and an Olympian.

Pistorius represented his nation around the world with a squeaky clean image that was a sport marketer’s dream. On Valentine’s night 2013, Pistorius was at the center of a tragedy that shook South Africa to its core when his girlfriend Steenkamp was found dead at his residence.

Pistorius was charged with murder and has maintained his innocence. A trial date is set for March 2014.

3.LANCE ARMSTRONG - When someone denies, denies, and denies the presumption of innocence exists on some level.

For Lance Armstrong, years of denials failed to clear the cloud of suspicion that constantly hung over the seven-time Tour de France champion.

Facing a mountain of evidence, and having his Tour titles stripped, Armstrong did what many believed he’d never do: Admit on the record that he took performance-enhancing drugs.

January’s television interview with Oprah Winfrey was, at times, uncomfortable to watch as a sportsman who meant so much to so many confirmed what many refused to believe.

Perhaps there were lessons learned from Armstrong’s confession - not for the cyclist himself, but for those of us who hold athletes in high esteem.

1.ANDY MURRAY - Most Brits wouldn’t consider themselves "tennis fans"’ but many of us tune in for a fortnight every summer to watch Wimbledon, hoping that a homegrown player will finally end the drought in the men’s championship.

With Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal crashing out early, we knew that Scotland’s Andy Murray might never get a better chance, and he seized it with a dramatic win against Djokovic in the final.

I wish I’d been there to see it, but I called it live on World Sport and because I knew what it meant to the country and Murray himself, I had to keep my own emotions in check for our global audience! It was Rafa’s year, but this is my top three so I’m going with Murray!

2.OSCAR PISTORIUS - The news that Pistorius had shot his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp to death was certainly not a great sport story, but it was one that dominated our headlines back in February.

Amanda Davies spoke with Oscar Pistorius during the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Unlike Lance Armstrong’s mea culpa, this was a shocking event that took all of us by surprise. I had previously met Oscar, and found him to be a charming and inspirational young man; whatever the outcome of his trial next year, all that he has achieved and everything uplifting that he stood for will be forgotten.

For everyone concerned, it’s a desperately tragic tale.

3.BAYERN MUNICH - For so long, Barcelona have dominated the European football narrative but it all ended that night in April when they were thrashed 4-0 by Bayern Munich.

The Bavarian giants effectively booked their place in the final after the home leg of their semifinal and within a matter of weeks, Bayern had won the European Champions League, the Bundesliga and the German Cup - an unprecedented German treble that had eluded them twice before. It was hard not to be impressed, and just as Bayern were emerging as the pre-eminent force on the continent, they recruited Barca’s former coach Pep Guardiola. The early signs are that they might now be even better.

Patrick Snell1.LANCE ARMSTRONG - 2013 will be forever known as the year Lance Armstrong came clean. The athlete who had conquered cancer appeared to have it all. The worldwide respect and admiration of millions. His legacy seemed untarnished. In January all that changed when the Texan admitted to doping in a two-part television interview.

With that, in one fell swoop, went every last ounce of credibility. Cycling’s ultimate fighter, the one I’d once in vain chased down the Champs-Elysees in Paris for an interview after yet another “triumph,” had fallen flat on his face.

After a career spent denying it all, Armstrong’s mea culpa was at least one step in the right direction, though I’ll never fully grasp why he continues to believe he was being “ singled out” and targeted by USADA.

The Oprah interview answered some questions but left many unanswered. My challenge to Lance now: There’s still time, but only for the whole truth and nothing but the truth!

2.ALEX FERGUSON - In a way it was entirely fitting Alex Ferguson chose 2013 to finally end his illustrious Manchester United career.

He had just won the club's 20th English title while at the same time securing his 13th since taking over Britain's biggest club in 1986.

I've gone for "Fergie" quite simply because of the sheer enormity of it all. Twenty-six years at the helm, 1,500 matches in charge and 38 trophies - a glittering haul that also included five English FA Cups and two European Cups.

But it's not just that Ferguson was a winning machine, it was also his dedication in nurturing young talent that will live long in my memory: Scholes, Giggs, Ronaldo and Beckham.

Another key reason for his unparalleled success was Ferguson's ability to rule United with an iron fist. Just ask Roy Keane, Van Nistelrooy or even Beckham, who he abruptly sold to Real Madrid in 2003.

No one player was ever bigger than Manchester United. In terms of durability and his relentless winning mentality over the course of three decades - if you include his successful period at Aberdeen too - he simply has no match.
For many, including myself, he rightly goes down as the best ever.

3.ANDY MURRAY - I simply couldn't omit the credentials of Fergie's fellow Scot Andy Murray. He makes my top 3 just because - to put it in plain English - he did it. Finally! Never again will I have to pen those weary words: "No Brit has won Wimbledon since 1936." He'd been threatening it for a good while and it was certainly well merited. While I do wonder how many slams he'll eventually go on to claim, nobody can ever take this one away from him.

As someone who's covered Wimbledon at the All-England Club I've witnessed first-hand the agonies of the long-suffering British public.

A momentous achievement - one which even triggered an all-too-rare smile from Murray. Now I guess I'm reduced to writing "No ENGLISHMAN has won Wimbledon since 1936!"

So there you go. My top 3 picks for 2013. Oh, and to think I never mentioned Australia regaining the Ashes!

1.BATTLE AGAIN RACISM IN FOOTBALL - Kevin-Prince Boateng walking off the pitch during a friendly for AC Milan back in January sparked football's fight against racism into life. A huge groundswell of support for his response to abuse from the stands from fans of lower league team Pro Patria finally forced the sport's governing bodies into action.

Alex Thomas and CNN crew on the ground at FIFA Headquarters.

FIFA set up an anti-racism task force and sanctions are being unified and toughened across all federations. Now it's up to the authorities to enforce those new rules and mirror society's growing intolerance for inequality and discrimination.

For me, it narrowly trumps Nigeria's African Cup of Nations victory over plucky Burkina Faso - which I was lucky enough to be at - and Bayern Munich's all-conquering season, culminating in their fifth Champions League triumph.

2.SERENA WILLIAMS - In tennis, Serena, in the year she turned 32, has been extraordinary; Just four defeats, and 11 titles from 16 tournaments including two grand slam victories.

She's the first woman to earn $10 million in prize money in one season. In my opinion, that puts her narrowly ahead of Rafael Nadal - who returned to the top of the men's rankings, and Andy Murray's emotional Wimbledon win.

3.HENRIK STENSON - Ranked as low as 207th in the world at the start of 2012, Henrik Stenson's climb back up golf's rankings has left him breathing down the necks of Tiger Woods and Adam Scott.

It was simply great fun to watch the Swede play in scintillating, swashbuckling fashion as he became the first to take the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup and Europe's equivalent, the Final Series.

Don Riddell interviewed Henrik Stenson for CNN's Living Golf show.

@WorldSportCNN using the hashtag #WorldSportTop10

]]>http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/2013/12/17/what-was-the-biggest-sport-story-of-2013/feed/152013-12-17T21:56:00+00:00tommcgowanPostcard from America: Jurgen Klinsmann's U.S. World Cup missionhttp://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/2013/12/13/jurgen-klinsmann-german-in-charge-of-u-s-world-cup-hopes/
http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/2013/12/13/jurgen-klinsmann-german-in-charge-of-u-s-world-cup-hopes/#commentsFri, 13 Dec 2013 11:23:22 +0000http://worldsport.blogs.cnn.com/?p=9989It’s always fun trying to explain European soccer to an American who has been raised solely on a diet of football and baseball. The concept of promotion and relegation is totally alien to them, as is the notion that one team can play in up to four different “league-type” competitions every season.

A mate of mine used to play in the NFL and we recently spent a whole lunch working through such matters before we arrived at the notion of international matches. The fact that a player could effectively be two-timing his main employer by also turning out for his country blew his mind.

I struggled to explain how those national teams would be made up and the only way he could get his head around it was to think of them as “All-Star” line-ups.

I suppose that’s a good analogy. An international football manager is tasked with picking the best players available to him, players who share a common nationality. That same rule doesn’t apply to the manager himself, though. Of the 32 teams heading to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, roughly a third will be coached by “foreigners.”

The top teams in Europe wouldn’t dream of looking abroad for a manager. In modern times, the continent’s last three World Cup winners – France (1998), Italy (2006) and Spain (2010) – have always been coached by one of their own. England, champion in 1966, recently dabbled with a Swede (Sven Goran Eriksson) and an Italian (Fabio Capello) but neither experience is remembered with much fondness.

Which leads me back to the United States. In Brazil next year, they’ll be one of those teams with a foreigner on the touchline – Germany’s Jurgen Klinsmann.

Soccer is still developing on this side of the Atlantic and they’d prefer a coach they perceive as "the best" rather than “one of their own.”

It should be said that Klinsmann has based himself in California for the last 15 years and is married to an American. But there’s a deep reverence for the European game and a man who’s found considerable success there both as a player and a coach. Additionally, in the melting pot of the USA, many Americans identify with the countries of their family history – it’s quite OK to be from somewhere else.

As far as his employers are concerned, Klinsmann transcends the debate and his nationality neatly bookends America’s relationship with German coaches; the legendry Dettmar Cramer briefly ran the national team in 1974 and sowed the seeds for the country’s training structure.

It hasn’t always been a perfect match, however. A damning press report earlier this year identified serious divisions within the team, pointing to concerns about Klinsmann’s strategic acumen and communication skills.

Following a dispiriting loss to Honduras in February, World Cup qualification could no longer be taken for granted. Klinsmann’s nationality was never used as a stick to beat him with, but it was a very unhappy camp.

Then everything suddenly clicked. The team went on a record 12-game winning streak, winning the Gold Cup and topping their World Cup qualifying group by four points.

On the day he was hired in 2011, Klinsmann told me he wanted a team that mirrored the country it represented, and two years later it has a very multicultural appearance.

A quick glance at the roster reveals players born to immigrants from Haiti and Colombia and men whose parents are from Norway, Iceland, Mexico and Germany. Every socio-economic background is represented.

Central to the Americans' success has been the confidence Klinsmann has instilled in the squad. An international manager sometimes feels as though he has to work with one hand tied behind his back; throughout the course of a year, the time spent working with their players is very limited. Klinsmann, though, has got his players believing that anything is possible, they have the ability to get where they want to go.

But his biggest challenge is looming large on the horizon.

Before the World Cup draw was made last week, the U.S. would have expected to make it into the knockout rounds.

That was before they were grouped with two of the top five teams in the world, Germany and Portugal, plus the side that ended their hopes in the 2006 and 2010 tournaments, Ghana, with defeats in the first round in Germany and then the last 16 in South Africa.

As Klinsmann revealed with a nervous laugh in his interview shortly afterwards, it was a brutally tough draw.

Klinsmann’s home country is one of the favorites in Brazil. It’s the team he won the tournament with as a player in 1990 and led to third place as a manager in 2006. Now they’ll help shape his narrative as a manager in soccer’s new world, as he comes up against his former assistant Joachim Low - now in charge of Germany's national team.

As is the case with any sport in any part of the world, it doesn’t matter where you’re from or what you’re like – just as long as you’re winning.

The tens of thousands of American fans who’ll be making the short trip to Brazil are bracing themselves for what might be a short stay.

Fortunately Klinsmann will be around for a while longer, Thursday’s news that the 49-year-old's contract has been extended until 2018 demonstrates that the U.S. are more than happy with a foreign coach and, in particular, this one.